So last night, as I was attempting to fall asleep, I found myself feeling spiritually desolate with a feeling of being lost in the desert, so to speak. I started to recite in my mind, a short prayer that I turn to once in a while at times like these. There is something called the Jesus Prayer, or centering prayer, from the Eastern Orthodox tradition that is usually repeated in time with the breath, as a meditation/mantra.

To clarify, I do not belong to a religion, and I came upon this practice as part of my investigation of meditation techniques after learning a bunch of chi kung from one of my teachers. This guy spent more time teaching me chi kung type stuff than kata or fighting, etc. One thing that happened to me when I began practicing this stuff was that I started having really weird dreams.

I was asleep, but I was still trying to recite the prayer, although, as happens in dreams, my attention wandered and I lost my place, starting over again and again. I found myself in a dark room in front of a large mirror, but didn't want to look at it. I kept glancing at it out of the corner of my eye, than quickly looking away. Finally I steeled myself to face the mirror and saw my self peering out of the mirror, at me. It was physically me, but my visage was dark and red, with a cunning, aggressive and tortured aspect that transformed my features.

I recall reading once about an experiment…you sit still on a chair in front of a long mirror in a semi-darkened room and in complete silence, looking at yourself. As time passes…you will notice the devil looking at you.

But your dream…well... as an experiment...imagine of looking at yourself from the 'outside' of you…maybe from that angle up to the right of your room_ looking fixedly at you _sidelong and fiercely.

Imagine of being able to judge the self in ways totally detached from what we know we are deep inside.

Then detach totally from the self. You are now in that upper angle of your room_ and observe the self _reading, watching TV or working the computer…what would you feel?

Or maybe, if you could steal other people's bodies, you could look at yourself through the eyes of those people.

Will what we would see _please us? Maybe it could ruin our existence…

...better to pretend not to have read these words…we can continue as usual…enveloped in our finite existence, maybe shouting at the self that nobody really understands us.